Doing things the Right way in the world

Boro understands that in the B2B world, the measure of success is the return on investment based on the value of its offering to customers. Consequently, the then Emap decided to sell its B2B arm to Apax Partners, a private equity company.

The first thing they did in 2012 was to change the company's name from Emap, already known for its print publications in the United Kingdom, to the current Top Right Group. Now the group has four subsidiaries - Emap, i2i Event Group, Lions Festivals and 4C Group.

Emap, the former publishing business that now serves customers via print, online, mobile, App, tablet and at live events. now accounts for around 20 percent of the group's turnover. The remaining 80 percent is split between global trading exhibition organizing company i2i, including Lions Festivals which organizes International Festivals of Creativity, and 4C, an international data and information services provider.

Face-to-face events are what Top Right believes will never die out no matter how digital the world becomes. "Business is not made by just providing information to people. It's done by enabling people to meet the right people to make that connection and get the deal done," said Boro. But in the information age, "clearly, digital is the easiest way for us to grow".

A survey conducted by Alliance for Audited Media among 210 print publishers in North America showed that about 90 percent of the interviewed organizations had gone digital by the end of last year. Statistics provided by Emarketer show that 2012 marked the first year that advertisers put more money into online channels than into print media.

The question that Boro is frequently asked is whether the services are expensive or not. She regards it as a misguided question.

"When people are making multi-million-dollar trading decisions, whether a subscription costs $10,000 or $20,000 is irrelevant. The question is trust, quality information, forecasting ability and analytics. That's really what a platform is best at," she said.

The importance of service that Boro stressed is something that Li Xueqian, director of China Children's Press and Publications Group, reinforced at the 10th Forum on International Cultural Industries held in January. Li said that in the information age publishers should "complete the transformation from providing products to providing services".

Chinese market

When asked about her impression of Chinese businessmen, "lucky" was the word that Boro concluded. She described it as a rational reaction because "you cannot find anywhere else with the same rapid growth rate and market scale as China possesses", she said.

To capture the emerging market, Top Right established its sales headquarters for "Greater China" in Shanghai in late March. However, this move was not made overnight. Boro said there was never just one piece of evidence to take the company to China several years ago. It was not the biggest customer and they were already global.

"When you get people from the middle- and end-market, when our customers range from the coastal cities to second-tier cities, when our global customers are calling us to really understand the China market, that's when we thought it was the moment," she said